LUTHER BURBANK 
with the entire stretch of their racial histories, 
since the two fruits branched from the same stem. 
And so it is quite to be expected that the two 
would readily cross. In point of fact, the experi- 
ment of cross-pollenizing is so readily performed 
that it is very often carried out by the bees. 
The hand pollenizer may make the test suc- 
cessfully without the slightest difficulty. 
I was led to experiment along this line by the 
recollection of an old peach tree called a “Meloco- 
toon”, four of which stood in our home garden in 
New England, and one of which, as I well recall, 
had a single branch high up in the tree that al- 
ways bore a fruit quite different from the peaches 
with which its other branches were laden. This 
anomalous fruit, which appeared as a “bud- 
sport” was in fact a nectarine. 
I had learned also that when peaches and nec- 
tarines were grown in the same neighborhood, one 
could never be certain as to which fruit would 
grow when the seed of either fruit is planted. 
You may plant a peach seed and grow a nec- 
tarine tree; or, far less frequently, you may grow 
a peach tree from a nectarine seed. | 
The explanation, of course, is that the two 
tribes are constantly intercrossed when growing 
side by side, through the agency of the bees. 
Pondering these facts, I determined to make 
[152] 
